Garden Spells

by Sarah Addison Allen

  On her way back to the grocery store from Maxine’s, Sydney passed the White Door Salon. Ten years ago it had been a trendy hair salon called Tangles, but now it was much more posh. A patron came out, and with her came the scent of chemicals cushioned by the fragrance of sweet shampoo. It was a smell that could almost lift Sydney up and make her float. Oh, how she missed that. It had been a long time since she’d been in a salon, and every time she passed one she felt like this, like she needed to go in and pick up her shears and get to work.

  She started to get that prickly feeling she always got when she thought of being happy again. Like she shouldn’t even bother. But she’d gone to beauty school under her real name, a name David didn’t know. She had to remind herself that he wouldn’t find them here. He wouldn’t come just because she wanted to work again. The only reason David had found her in Boise was because she’d registered Bay under her real name. She didn’t think she had a choice when the day care asked for Bay’s birth certificate. She thought David would only be looking for Cindy Watkins, not Bay. She wasn’t making that mistake again. Bay was a Waverley here.

  She patted her hair, glad that she’d put it up in a clever twist and trimmed and shaped her bangs that morning.

  Then she straightened her shoulders and walked in.

  She was giddy when she met Claire and Bay at the van. She grinned as she helped them load the bags of groceries. She kept meeting Claire’s eyes until Claire finally said, “Okay, what’s with the grin?”

  “Guess what?”

  Claire smiled, obviously amused by Sydney’s mood. “What?”

  “I got a job! I told you I was staying. Getting a job is pretty clear, isn’t it?”

  Claire stopped what she was doing, leaning halfway in the van. She looked genuinely perplexed. “But you already have a job.”

  “Claire, you do the work of three people. And you only need help occasionally. I’ll still work when you need me.” Sydney laughed. Nothing was going to ruin this mood. “Maybe not at Emma’s house again…but, you know.”

  Claire straightened. “Where did you get the job?”

  “At the White Door.” It was going to take all her money, including the money from the shirt she’d just returned, to rent the booth and get supplies, but she had a wonderful feeling. She still had some of her equipment, and straightening out the state-to-state reciprocity licensing wouldn’t take too long. She knew there’d been a reason she kept renewing her license. This was the reason. She would soon make the money to put back into the emergency fund, and people in Bascom would see that she was actually skilled at something. They would come to her like they came to Claire, because of what she could do.

  “You’re a hairstylist?” Claire asked.

  “Yep.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  Claire was getting too close to asking again about where she and Bay had been, and Sydney still wasn’t ready to tell her. “Listen, Bay will be starting kindergarten in the fall, but it will be a while before I can afford day care. Will you look after her? I’ll ask Evanelle too.”

  She could tell that Claire knew what Sydney was doing, avoiding the obvious questions, but Claire didn’t press her. Maybe one day she’d tell her sister about the past ten years, one day when there was enough trust between them to warrant such a revelation, when she knew the entire town wouldn’t find out, but Sydney secretly hoped it all would just disappear as if it never happened, like a photograph fading to nothing.

  “Of course I will,” Claire finally said.

  They started loading the bags again. Sydney looked in a bag and asked, “What is all this stuff?”

  “I’m going to make pizza rolls,” Claire said.

  “You can buy them frozen, you know.”

  “I knew that,” Claire said. Then she whispered to Bay, “Is that true?”

  Bay laughed.

  “What about this stuff?” Sydney asked, nosing around some more in the bags. “Blueberries? Water chestnuts?”

  Claire shooed her away and closed the back of the van. “I’m going to make a few dishes for Tyler,” Claire said.

  “Are you, now? I thought you didn’t want anything to do with him.”

  “I don’t. These are special dishes.”

  “A love potion?”

  “There’s no such thing as a love potion.”

  “You’re not going to poison him, are you?”

  “Of course not. But the flowers in our garden…” Claire paused. “Maybe I can make him less interested.”

  That made Sydney laugh, but she didn’t say a word. She knew a lot about men, but making them less interested had never been her specialty. Leave it to Claire to make it hers.

  Bay stretched out on the grass, the sun on her face. The things that happened even a week ago were fading in her mind, like the way the color pink faded until it was almost white and you couldn’t believe it was ever pink once. What color were her father’s eyes? How many steps were there from their old house to the sidewalk? She couldn’t remember.

  Bay knew all along that they were going to leave Seattle. She never told her mother this, because it was too hard to explain and she didn’t understand it fully herself. They just didn’t belong there, and Bay knew where things belonged. Sometimes, when her mother would put things away at their old house, Bay would sneak in later and put the things where she knew her father wanted them to be. Her mother would put his socks in his sock drawer, but Bay would know that when he got home he would want them in the closet with his shoes. Or when her mother would put the socks with his shoes, Bay would know when that would make him mad, and she’d put them in the drawer. But sometimes his desires changed so quickly that Bay couldn’t keep up with them, and he’d yell and do bad things to her mother. It had been exhausting, and she was glad to be someplace it was clear where things belonged. Utensils were always in the drawer to the left of the sink. Linens were always put in the closet at the top of the stairs. Claire never changed her mind about where things went.

  Bay had dreamed of this place a long time ago. She’d known they were coming here. But today Bay was lying in the garden trying to figure out what was missing. In the dream she was stretched out on the grass in this garden, by this apple tree. The grass was soft like in her dream. And the scent of the herbs and flowers was exactly like in the dream. But in her dream there were rainbows and tiny specks of light on her face, like something sparkling above her. And there was supposed to be the sound of something like paper flapping in the wind, but the only sound around was the rustling of the leaves on the apple tree as it dropped apples around her.

  An apple hit her leg, and Bay opened one eye to look up at the tree. It kept dropping apples on her, almost like it wanted to play.

  She sat up suddenly when she heard Claire call her name. This was Sydney’s first day at work and Claire’s first day of watching Bay. Sydney hadn’t allowed Bay into the garden, but Claire said it was okay to be out here as long as she didn’t pick any of the flowers. Bay had been so excited to finally see the garden. She hoped she hadn’t done anything wrong.

  “I’m right here,” Bay called as she stood. She saw Claire standing at the other end of the garden by the gate. “I didn’t pick any flowers.”

  Claire held up a casserole dish covered with aluminum foil. “I’m going over to Tyler’s to take him this. Come with me.”

  Bay ran down the gravel pathway to Claire, glad that she was going to see Tyler again. When she and her mother had visited last time, he let her draw on an easel, and when she showed him what she’d drawn, he hung it on his refrigerator.

  Claire closed and locked the gate behind them, and they walked around the house to Tyler’s yard. Bay walked close to Claire. She liked the way Claire smelled, comfortable, like kitchen soap and garden herbs. “Aunt Claire, why does the apple tree keep dropping apples on me?”

  “It wants you to eat one,” Claire said.

  “But I don’t like apples.”

  “It knows that.” />
  “Why do you bury the apples?”

  “So no one else will eat them.”

  “Why don’t you want people to eat them?”

  Claire hesitated a moment. “Because if you eat an apple from that tree, you’ll see what the biggest event in your life will be. If it’s good, you’ll suddenly know that everything else you do will never make you as happy. And if it’s bad, you’ll have to live the rest of your life knowing something bad is going to happen. It’s something no one should know.”

  “But some people want to know?”

  “Yes. But as long as the tree is in our yard, we get a say-so.”

  They reached Tyler’s steps. “You mean it’s my yard too?”

  “It’s very definitely your yard too,” Claire said, smiling. Just for a moment, Claire was Bay’s age, looking at her with the same happiness Bay felt, that happiness at simply belonging in a way she’d never belonged before.

  “This is a pleasant surprise,” Tyler said when he opened the door. Claire had taken a deep breath before she knocked, and when she saw him she forgot to let it out. He was in a paint-splattered T-shirt and jeans. Sometimes her very skin felt so jumpy that she wanted to crawl out of her body. She wondered what a kiss from him would do. Help? Make it worse? He smiled, not looking at all put out that she’d shown up unannounced. That’s how she would feel. But he was, quite obviously, nothing like her. “Come in.”

  “I made you a casserole,” she said breathlessly as she handed it to him.

  “It smells delicious. Please, come in.” He stood back for them to enter, which was the last thing Claire wanted to do.

  Bay looked at her curiously. She thought something was wrong. Claire smiled at her and entered so she wouldn’t worry.

  Tyler led them through a living room with a few pieces of comfortable furniture and a lot of boxes, into a white kitchen with glass-front cabinets. There was a very large breakfast nook—another room, really—off the kitchen, with floor-to-ceiling windows. The floor of the nook was covered with a tarp, and there were paint supplies littered across a long huntboard. Two easels were set up.

  “That’s the reason I bought this house. All that beautiful light,” Tyler said as he put the casserole dish on the kitchen counter.

  “Can I draw, Tyler?” Bay asked.

  “Sure, kiddo. Your easel is right over there. Let me put some paper on it.”

  While Tyler adjusted the easel to her height, Bay went to the refrigerator and pointed to a colored drawing of an apple tree. “Look, Claire, I did that.”

  It wasn’t that Tyler had put Bay’s drawing on his refrigerator that Claire appreciated; it was that he’d left it there. “It’s beautiful.”

  As soon as Bay was settled, Tyler walked back to Claire, smiling.

  Claire’s eyes went to the dish worriedly. It was a chicken and water chestnut casserole made with the oil from snapdragon seeds. Snapdragons were meant to ward off the undue influences of others, hexes and spells and the like, and Tyler needed to free himself of her influence over him. “Aren’t you going to eat it?” she prompted.

  “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  He shrugged. “Well, okay. Why not. Will you join me?”

  “No, thank you. I’ve already eaten.”

  “Then sit while I eat.” He took a clear glass plate from the cabinet and spooned some of the casserole onto it. He led Claire to two stools at the counter. “So, how are you and Bay getting along with Sydney at work?” he asked as they took their seats. “She stopped by yesterday and told me about her new job. She has a gift with hair. A real passion for it.”

  “We’re doing fine,” Claire said, watching Tyler as he brought a forkful of the casserole to his mouth. He chewed and swallowed, and she thought for a moment that maybe she shouldn’t be watching. It was almost sensual, his full lips, the bob of his Adam’s apple. She shouldn’t feel this way about a man who was going to be free of her in a few seconds.

  “Ever thought of having kids?” he asked.

  “No,” she answered, still staring.

  “Never?”

  She took her mind off his mouth and thought about it. “Not until you just asked me.”

  He took another bite, then pointed to his plate with his fork. “This is wonderful. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten as well as I have since I met you.”

  Maybe it just took a few minutes to kick in. “Next you’re going to tell me I remind you of your mother. I expect more creativity from you. Eat.”

  “No, you’re nothing like my mother. Her free spirit doesn’t include anything to do with the kitchen.” She raised her brows at this bit of information. He smiled at her and took another bite. “Go on, you know you want to ask.”

  She hesitated a moment, then gave in and asked. “How was she a free spirit?”

  “They’re potters, my parents. I grew up in an artists’ colony in Connecticut. You didn’t want to wear clothes? You didn’t have to. You didn’t want to wash the dishes? You broke them and made some more. Do a little pot and sleep with your best friend’s husband. It was all okay. It wasn’t for me, though. I can’t help my artistic nature, but security and routine mean more to me than they do to my parents. I just wish I was better at it.”

  You’re looking at an expert, she thought, but didn’t say it out loud. He would probably like that about her.

  Two more bites and he’d cleaned his plate.

  She looked at him expectantly. “Did you like it? How do you feel?”

  He met her eyes, and she almost fell off her stool from the force of his desire. It was like a hard gust of autumn wind that blew fallen leaves around so fast they could cut you. Desire was dangerous to thin-skinned people. “Like I want to ask you on a date.”

  Claire sighed and her shoulders dropped. “Damn.”

  “There’s music on the quad at Orion every Saturday night in the summer. Come with me this Saturday.”

  “No, I’ll be busy.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Making you another casserole.”

  Sydney’s third day at work was the third day she went without a single walk-in wanting her to cut their hair, and not a single regular White Door patron wanting her to do their shampoo when their own stylist was running behind.

  And that was the high point.

  At lunchtime, since she didn’t have anything else to do and she had already eaten the olive sandwich and sweet-potato chips Claire had packed for her, Sydney offered to fetch the other stylists’ lunches. They were a nice bunch, and they were encouraging and kept telling Sydney it would get better. But that didn’t extend to sharing their clients. Sydney had to find some way to get how good she was out there, to start bringing people in.

  At the Coffee House and at the Brown Bag Café, Sydney chatted up the workers and offered them discounts if they wanted to come to the White Door and let Sydney cut their hair. None seemed too enthusiastic, but it was a start. She walked back to the salon and put the bags of lunches in the break room, then she placed the lattes and iced coffees at the stations where some stylists were still working.

  The last station she went to was Terri’s. Sydney smiled and put her soy latte on the counter.

  “Thanks, Sydney,” Terri said, elbow deep in highlighting her client’s blond hair.

  The client’s head shot up, and Sydney saw that it was Ariel Clark.

  Despite her initial desire to demand an apology for what Ariel had put her and Claire through that Saturday night, Sydney held her tongue and walked away without a word. She wanted to salvage what was left of her day.

  Ariel Clark, however, had other ideas.

  Later, Sydney was sweeping around a station at the other end of the salon when Ariel walked up to her. Emma looked a lot like her mother, the same ice-blond hair, the same blue eyes, the same confident swagger. Even back when Sydney and Emma were friends, Ariel had always been standoffish toward Sydney. When Sydney spent nights at the Clark house, Ariel had always been polite, but there
was something about her that made Sydney feel like being there was charity, not acceptance.

  When Ariel didn’t move from the only spot left to sweep, Sydney finally stopped.

  She managed a polite smile, even though she was choking the broom handle. If she was going to make a success out of this venture, she couldn’t whack White Door clients over the head with a broom, no matter how much they deserved it. “Hello, Mrs. Clark. How are you? I saw you at the party. I’m sorry we didn’t get to say hello.”

  “Understandable, sugar. You were working. It would have been inappropriate.” Her eyes slid down the broom to the sad pile of hair Sydney had swept up. “You’re working here, I gather.”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t actually…cut hair, do you?” she asked, as if appalled by the thought. A fine beginning, Sydney thought, if everyone in town who knew her was going to react to the news this way.

  “Yes, I do actually cut hair.”

  “Don’t you need some sort of degree to do that, sugar?”

  Her fingertips were going numb and turning white from gripping the broom handle so tightly. “Yes.”

  “Hmm,” Ariel said. “So I hear you have a daughter. And who is her father?”

  Sydney knew enough not to let Ariel see her vulnerable spots. Once some people knew how to hurt you, they would do it again and again. Sydney had a lot of experience with that. “No one you know.”

  “Oh, I’m certain of that.”

  “Anything else, Mrs. Clark?”

  “My daughter is very happy. She makes her husband very happy.”

  “She’s a Clark, after all,” Sydney said.